


because i could not stop for death (or demigods)

by fruitwhirl



Series: now, here's a story i heard [2]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Part 2, also there's rosa diaz in there just a little because i love her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 14:36:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12278553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitwhirl/pseuds/fruitwhirl
Summary: Amy (soon to be hyphenated) Santiago still has her hands full with a particular Annabeth Chase, who continues to be an almost-invisible thorn in her side.





	because i could not stop for death (or demigods)

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote most of this to the soundtrack of crazy-ex girlfriend, jsyk. half of title from emily dickinson's "because i could not stop for death" aka one of my faves
> 
> i meant to have this up earlier, but your girl is tired and college is too Much

As with all cases involving one Annabeth Chase, it appears right out of the blue.

Well, that’s not entirely true. In the months following Jake and Rosa’s acquittal and the flash of blond in the courtroom, Amy’s been expecting her to pop up anywhere; in fact, some mornings she swears she notices the young criminal in the holding cell, only for her to rub her eyes and look again to see an empty room.

So yeah, there’s a loose expectation for the girl to show up with her slippery smile, but with each passing week, Amy thinks about her less and less.

That is, of course, until it’s the morning after she and Jake get engaged (after a day filled to the brim with bogus, extravagant proposals that gradually heightened the level of frustration building within her—and why wouldn’t they? One actually involved a choir of school children, a lion cub, and the Hershey’s store in Times Square—it ends on the rooftop they spent the majority of their fake date together on, with twinkling fairy lights, soft words, and only one _Diehard_ reference), and clad in just an excessively oversized, long-sleeved NYPD shirt that she believes belonged to Terry at one point, she  pads through the kitchen, and is just about to put on a pot of coffee when she notices a small cardboard box on the counter.

Immediately, it raises her guard.

Amy creeps toward it, suspicion inking her every step. It’s barely bigger than a breadbox, unmarked, but there’s a plain indigo-colored envelope lying to the side of it, its flap closed with two smooth pieces of tape.  A knife in hand, she quietly slips it under the fold to reveal a plain white greeting card, with a cartoon-ish illustration of an engagement ring serving as the only decoration on the front.

“Jake,” she calls out, thinking that maybe, just maybe, this is him being, well, _Jake._ And she’s just opened the card and realized that the handwriting is decidedly _not_ his, but instead swirling yet oddly neat, much like hers, when she feels a sharp weight on her shoulder. Nearly jumping from the unexpected feeling, she turns her head slightly to see that it’s just _Jake,_ his chin resting on the cloth-covered skin.

From the corner of her eye, she notes that he’s smiling at her, but upon seeing the card in her hands, he furrows his brow. “What’s that?”

“ _Jacob and Aimelis. Congratulations on your engagement,”_ Amy reads, instantly scrunching her nose. “I thought you hadn’t told anyone.”

“I didn’t.” She feels his arms sliding to fit around her waist. “I didn’t even tell Charles—he would’ve told you before I finished my sentence.”

She hums, and continues. “ _We would tell you this in person, but since you put out an APB on us the last time you saw me outside of your precinct, I didn’t want to risk it, and figured it’d be better just to leave this gift.”_ And then in a messier scrawl: “ _Can’t wait for the open bar at your wedding! – C & J.” _At the final two initials, Amy hears herself groan, almost involuntarily.

“’C & J?’”

“Chase and Jackson.” At his raised eyebrow, she scowls. “Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson.” There’s a look on his face that she can’t quite decipher (which doesn’t happen, like _ever,_ because she knows this man like the back of her own hand), but if she were to guess, she’d say it’s one of both amusement and slight irritation. She thinks that he’s seen her wear that same expression when talking to him, sometimes. “I can’t believe this.”

“I _know!_ I wonder what they got us,” he shouts, obviously enthusiastic.

She’s just about to agree with him when she realizes what he said, and the words make her narrow her eyes. “No, I can’t believe that they _broke into our home,_ while we were _asleep_ —”

“To be fair, you’re a pretty light sleeper, so it was probably while we were having sex.”

“That’s even worse!”

“You’re just really focused.”

_“Jake!”_

Instead of recognizing her frustration, though, Jake just laughs, reaches around her to open the box, but she smacks his hand away from the flap.  “That could be a _bomb!”_

He hums in disagreement. “Nuh-uh, Chase has a real soft spot for you.” And then he blows a lazy raspberry against her cheek before flipping the lid open to reveal a plain white, round cake with blue-icing script written on it.

_“Congrats on the sex!”_

Amy doesn’t want to eat the cake, especially not this early in the morning, especially not this exact cake from her arch-nemesis, especially not when it’s a break-and-entering cake— _“A cake-in!”_ Jake exclaims in sheer joy—but her newly-minted fiancé is smiling so wide and looks so happy that she can’t help but grab two paper plates to go along with a pair of mismatched coffee mugs (one a chipped portrait of Ariel, while the other adorned with a variety of lyrics of songs by Taylor Swift). And yes, he makes _one_ sex-tape joke. She thinks he has even more fun with it now that it’s transitioned it from “your” to “our.”

(Later, Amy will comb throughout the entire apartment, desperately searching for _some trace_ of their unwelcome guest, some sort of sign that the girl with the sly grin and shining eyes was in her house.)

(She doesn’t find anything.)

 

 

 

In her three decades of existence, Amy has read over five hundred books (not that she’s counting), and considers herself a rather voracious bookworm. When stressed—and particularly when Jake and Rosa were wrongfully imprisoned—she’d even re-shelve books that were improperly placed in the New York Public Library (she thinks she’s gotten on many a librarian’s bad side for this reason). But as a cop, she doesn’t have a whole lot of down-time to read, not nearly as much as she’d like.

Over the past year, she’s only read a _dismal_ thirteen novels (mostly comprised of works concerning unlawfully jailed citizens, and the _Nothing Lasts Forever_ novel—unsurprisingly, _Die Hard_ is actually a film adaption, and she misses Jake more than she cares to admit), but considering much of her free-time was spent working the Hawkins case, she doesn’t beat herself up too badly.

A few months after the squad is reunited in full (aside from a very-close-to-giving-birth Gina who insists on dancing everywhere she goes even if it’s more akin to enthusiastic waddling now) and everything was as back to normal as it could get, she devours _These Idle Stars_ in a number of days. She’s read this author before, and enjoys this novel—a story about a young girl who can control people with her voice, but is deaf herself—just as much as her previous works, and is beyond thrilled when Kylie mentions that she’s having a book signing at a little bookstore on Fulton.

Oddly enough, because Kylie is working that particular afternoon, she ends up dragging an almost willing Rosa with her, who very quietly, very gruffly claims underneath her breath that “Sally Blofis is the Nancy Meyer of literature.” When Amy explains that the woman’s novels are much deeper than just the typical romantic comedy but in book-form, Rosa growled and she decided not to argue her point any further.

There’s a decent crowd congregating within the confines of _Greenlight_ , but it doesn’t take very long for the lines to dwindle and for Amy and Rosa to approach a kindly middle-aged woman with brunette hair and a wide smile, who signs their book with an understated flourish. When she asks for their names, she gets this strangely fond look on her face, as if it’s familiar and she’s just trying to place it.

The two detectives will get a coffee as they chat about the merits of contemporary novels with romantic subplots, and it’s after, when she’s back at home and curled up in bed with Jake, flipping through the hardback book all the way to the _Acknowledgements_ section at the end that she has yet to read (yes, she likes reading about what influences her favorite authors).

But it’s there, when she’s skimming through it, because after Sally Blofis thanks her husband and family, she also thanks a girl she considers a daughter of sorts, a girl who _has eyes, wide and gray, and a heart as large as her son, Percy’s, who inspired the main character’s strength and intelligence._

Amy spends the night researching Sally Blofis (who is apparently Blofis-Jackson), and reconciling with the fact one of her most beloved authors is such a big Annabeth Chase stan.

 

 

 

“Don’t freak out.”

Frankly, considering their current situation—standing in front of their friends and their families (consisting of _his_ mother and _her_ fifty or so brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews and nieces and half of the Jewish population of Brooklyn) with Holt in between them helping to navigate their interfaith ceremony—she wouldn’t think this moment the best opportunity for those whispered three words, which causes terror to pool in her stomach. “Now is not the time, Jake.”

_“Now is not the time, Jake:_ title of your sex-tape.”

Amy resists rolling her eyes, instead running her thumb against the back of his knuckles as she prepares to start on her vows; she guesses that whatever Jake had to say could wait. It’s right as she’s in the middle of her second paragraph (three pages, double-sided, single spaced) and she realizes that she doesn’t remember ever being this happy—and once she got to laminate all of her teacher’s posters in fifth grade—it’s then, it’s then that her gaze slides from Jake’s smiling and slightly tear-stricken face to their guests, and she is just about to turn her attention back to him when she catches a mop of gold-yellow curls tucked away in the back row, and everything stops.

The pause doesn’t even register, though, until there’s a squeeze of her hands and a tender “Amy?” that pulls her back into the moment. And he’s looking at her, with the softest expression painted across his features, and he’s whispering, “don’t worry about them.” And she forgets for a moment about the blonde hair and coy smile.

When she finishes, she thinks that she might collapse, or that maybe _he_ might collapse, from sheer joy. His own vows are short but succinct; the words saturated with love and only three John McClane references (that she caught, at least). The rest of the ceremony whips by in the blur, as each member of the squad recites one of the seven blessings and the pair exchanges the simple gold bands and kiss and there’s a “hell yeah” from Rosa and a “this is gonna get so many likes” from Gina before they break the glass underneath their feet with a satisfying _crunch_. 1

She doesn’t even think about their once again uninvited guest until after they’ve cut the cake and the speakers are blasting Taylor Swift (this playlist is her top twenty-five hits according to Jake in descending order of iconic-ness—hint: his top song is “Sparks Fly” because he’s a not-so-secret romantic). Amy’s brothers are drunkenly belting out about a _slammin’ screen door_ and her now husband is doing some sort of choreographed routine with Gina to the track currently playing. While she’s chatting amiably with Jake’s aunt, she catches sight of something tall and blond out of the corner of her eye.

“Could you excuse me for a moment?”

In a few quick strides, she crosses the dance floor to the couple standing with their backs to her. “What the hell are you doing here?”

For once, she’s gotten the drop on this pair, which is odd considering they definitely had the element of surprise at one point? And Amy decides that she isn’t too proud to _not_ smirk at how they flinch slightly, Jackson’s arm unwinding from his girlfriend’s waist and reaching towards his pants pocket (the movement makes the seasoned cop wary), but only for a brief second.

When Chase turns around, she’s grinning broadly, seemingly recovered from the initial shock. A cornflower blue chiffon dress adorns her athletic frame, flowing down to her knees, a stark contrast to the grimy t-shirts and ratty jeans she normally wears when she appears in the precinct. “Didn’t you get our RSVP?”

Amy’s mind briefly flashes back to the cake that arrived unannounced and unsolicited, and is considering strangling the girl when Jackson wraps his arm back around his girlfriend, his hand resting on her hip, and says, “This all is so gorgeous, Sergeant.” He pauses, kisses the top of Chase’s head. Amy doesn’t want to admit that it’s totally adorable (because it totally is), so instead she frowns. “It’s like Annabeth planned it, or something.”

“You should know that I’m not going to take that as a compliment, right?”

Jackson shrugs one shoulder, nonchalant.  “She helped plan my mom’s wedding.”

Chase bats her hand against his chest and rolls her eyes, but doesn’t respond to the apparent praise, instead glancing at the newly-married sergeant, a smug grin creeping across her features. “You know, I’m surprised it took so long for you two to get hitched. But since you guys were separated for like a year, I kind of get it.”

“ _What_ —”

Jackson laughs, but it’s a little more good-humored than his partner’s. “I bet that you’d get pregnant first, to be honest.”

“So you guys made me thirty bucks richer,” Chase smiles.

“ _How did you_ —”

“One day you’ll realize I know everything, Santiago. Assuming you’re keeping—” She cuts herself off suddenly, diverting her gaze to something behind Amy. Her lips fall from the smirk they’re normally set in as she glances up at Jackson.

Suspicious and thoroughly annoyed, Amy quirks an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Chase says, too quickly, too dismissively. And then—“We have to go do something.”

Jackson’s hand stretches, almost instinctively, toward his pocket towards his pocket again. Fuck, he’s got something on him.

“I have half a mind to arrest you two, right now,” Amy almost growls. And then she jumps because there’s a hand on her shoulder and she nearly breaks all the fingers that currently are clamping down on the bare skin there until she hears a familiar yelp and realizes it’s her now husband.

He slings an arm around her back, smiles at the intruders. “I hope you guys liked the ceremony.”

“It was great,” Chase says distractedly, while her boyfriend adds, “Loved the glass part. It was my favorite.”

“ _Mine too!”_

She turns to the man by her side, now slightly irritated by _him._ “Jake, we literally just got married.”

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “But I’ve wanted to break glass with my foot in front of a crowd since I was like, seven. This was my dream come true.”

“ _Jake_ —”

“They’re gone.”

He’s right. In the midst of that little blip of a conversation, the pair had slipped away and, for a moment, Amy wants to scream or just do _something_ , because she’s only had a total thirteen hours of sleep in the past four days (their respective bachelor/bachelorette parties were crashed early on by an armed store robbery taking place right next door to the bar—Amy always keeps kevlar in her car—the events both started at and, as the two seasoned cops are cops above all else, the following fourteen hours were brimmed with questioning, puzzle-solving and ultimately taking down the perps).

She starts taking off her shoes so she can run after them—she’s wearing heels with those Mary-Jane style straps for some reason and she hates running in heels like these because she doesn’t want to trip on the skirt of her dress—and she’s nearly got it all unbuckled when Jake puts his hand, light as a bird’s feather, on the small of her back. “Just let them go, babe.”

Amy narrows her eyes at him. “She’s _my_ Doug Judy.”

“You know, me and Doug Judy are actually tight now.”

“Doug Judy and _I._ ”

“You’re not disagreeing with me,” he’s got a little smirk on his face that she knows all too well. And he’s right (even if she doesn’t want to admit it right now). He slips his arm around her waist, pulls her up from her crouched position as she sighs, and leads her towards the dance floor. “Let’s just go foxtrot to the Swift’s most acclaimed album, _Fearless.”_

A small smile finds its way to her lips and she takes his face in her hands, kisses him softly. “You can’t ballroom dance to ‘You Belong with Me,’ Jake.”

He feigns offense in his voice as he whispers, “I can’t believe you don’t believe in the training I received from many years of bar mitzvahs, Santiago,” and they do, actually, fox-trot and even waltz to the rest of her playlist and later, when they’re curled up together in their hotel room, still slightly tipsy on the night and each other and cheap white wine, she’ll remember the two definitely criminals and how _human_ they seemed for once, and she’ll make a mental note to track them down later.2

(And she’ll find out later that there was a fire started in one of the other ballrooms in the hotel that Gina didn’t tell her about where they don’t know how it got started and she’ll _actually_ scream but that’s neither here nor there.)

 

 

 

It’s a Tuesday and she’s sitting at her desk that says _Sergeant Santiago_ on it (at one point, yes, she does tack a pink sticky note on the end that adds ‘-Peralta’ to the end of her name), just casually questioning a teenager Boyle had picked up for shoplifting (Boyle ended up having to call the kid’s parents and then run to Nikolaj’s school because he forgot to pack him one of those strange concoctions he calls a lunch).

The teen is probably bordering on fifteen or sixteen, with frizzy orange hair, braces and a leather necklace that looks faintly familiar, though she can’t quite put her finger on it. Apparently attending one of the local magnet schools, her name is Calliope Brown, which she thinks is a weird name for a kid—but she figures that her own “Aimelis” isn’t necessarily typical, so she can’t judge.

And then, there’s a voice that she can definitely place drifting into the precinct: “What the hell, Callie?”

And then, there’s Annabeth Chase, dressed in a navy _pantsuit_ of all things, scowling like a particularly angry parent. She doesn’t seem to register Amy, though, because she marches right over to the terrified teen and actually wags her finger at her. “I can’t believe this.”

“Neither can I,” Amy says, eyebrow raised.

Chase visibly flinches. For a moment, the sergeant takes a moment to consider this woman, this woman who couldn’t be more than twenty-five at this moment but has the composure and air of a disappointed (if not slightly enraged) parent. Strangely enough, she can see the navy blue bill of what she assumes to be a Yankees cap peeking out of her purse. Amy takes these few seconds of silence as an opportunity to prod at this odd circumstance. “Why are you in my precinct, Chase?”

After a couple of breaths where Amy thinks she might bolt, Chase just sighs. “That weird small man called me to pick her up.”

“Her guardian is the only one who can do that.”

Another strained exhale. “That’s me.”

Amy narrows her eyes, but what follows is a surprisingly _mundane_ conversation that she’d probably have with any parent of a wannabe juvenile delinquent: the blonde explains that she’s fostering the adolescent while she attends school in the city. Amy doesn’t know how the woman would get approved for foster care with such an extensive arrest record, and she considers bringing it up, but she just files it away in her mind to look up later. At one point, Chase is gesticulating a little wildly, talking with her hands, and on her left ring finger Amy catches a glint of gold and, inwardly, she almost wants to smile, just a little bit.

When Amy finishes discussing the ramifications of the theft (which really isn’t that big of a deal, in the grand scheme of things), Chase just shakes her head, makes Calliope apologize to the cop standing in front of them, and then mutters to her foster daughter: “Next time, don’t get caught in this district.”

And then, Chase mouths “sorry” to the sergeant and there’s a loud bang, and the room fills with smoke.

Amy tries to chase after them, staying low to the ground to avoid the smoke as much as she can, but by the time she’s out on the street, there’s no sign of the pair and when she stomps back into the precinct, she’s just grumbling about how “this entire building is literally _full_ of cops” and yet “no one stopped them?”

And just as she does every time she encounters Chase, she’ll later track down whatever address is on the teenager’s record just to find an empty warehouse and a hot pink sticky-note that says, in that same, flourishing handwriting: "see ya later! - c & j" and a mocking smiley-face.

**Author's Note:**

> ok this was so much fun to write still and there will definitely be a third and final part, most likely where amy and annabeth team up for something. idk what, but you _know_ i gotta finish this off. as i've said, annabeth is 100% amy's doug judy.
> 
> 1\. okay so i have only been to like 3 weddings in my life, all “Christian” but super small and i have no idea how catholic or jewish weddings work??? so i am sorry if all of this is a mess, i couldn’t find a whole lot of info on interfaith weddings (especially concerning the actual process for catholic/jewish ceremonies) so if i really messed something let me know!
> 
> 2\. “how human they seemed for once” i cackled when i wrote this line by accident and decided to keep it in


End file.
